If there is one thing that should be banned in life it is....................

Nor should we but we should acknowledge the the quran is a book with a lot of hate speech and horrible teachings in it just like the bible.

 

As a progressive lefty, I find the misogyny of some supposedly "westernised" Muslims absolutely sickening. Bradford schoolgirls being sent to Pakistan for arranged marriages. Honour killings in Derby. These are not Daily Mail scare stories, but events widely reported in the "respectable" press. Just as disturbing is the deafening silence from prominent Muslim figures such as Sadiq Khan. Sadiq Khan is someone for whom I have an immense amount of respect, and I am not for one second suggesting that he condones such practices. However, and correct me if I am wrong, I have not once heard him speak out against arranged marriages within the Muslim community in Britain. Such silence tacitly allows such medieval "traditions" to continue, very sadly.

 

I think communism has probably killed more people, either through famine or the systematic removal of people who didn't get behind it. Was amazed how many people saw communism/socialism as valid political directions for our country in the run up to the last election.

 

Communism and socialism are very much not the same thing. All you need to do is look at the wealth of Scandinavia relative to the old Eastern Bloc to lay that little myth to rest.

 

I know what you're saying, the venn diagram would be pretty tight between the two though. I don't think the Scandinavian model is related to "classic" socialism though in that it just seems to be about high taxes to pay for public services.

 

But at the last election, nobody was offering a "classic" version of socialism. Labour's manifesto was pretty close to (but often not as far left as) a typical Scandinavian social-democratic model.

 

I wasn't expecting collectivisation of agriculture or anything but nationalisation of industries was worrying along with increasing spending, removing tuition fees etc while at the same time having no obvious method of paying for it just seemed like student union politics to me.

Our formerly nationalised industries and services are very heavily regulated to the point where they have to continually become more efficient in order to make any kind of profit - ask folk who worked for YEB or BR in the 80's and there was just no appetite for efficiency and seemingly no pressure to deliver it so you had crap services that cost a fortune.

The only thing I did think was daft was when the government controlled the East Coast franchise for a while but couldn't wait to give it away despite it making millions, but I think that's just because you had the same staff and working environment as when it was under private control, I doubt that would transfer to the whole network.

 

Its not FGM but MGM is rife in the western world especially amongst Jews where the penis is mutilated by the removal of the foreskin for no reason other than religion. I know it isn't as invasive a surgery as fgm but the basic principle is the same. Babies and children have part of their body cut off simply for religion. The biggest difference is that one is practiced by English speaking westerners (80% of American males are circumcised) so we have been conditioned to believe it is 'normal' when in reality it is still a mutilation which reduces sensitivity for the victim and for their partner in later life (ribbed condoms are designed to replicate the feeling of a 'natural' penis for the female during sex.

So yes FGM is terrible but we kid ourselves in believing only Muslims conduct this kind of thing, the western world have their en version but because of familiarity we have come to think of it as normal.

I also realise that circumcision is necessary in certain situations for health reasons but at the end of the day so is amputation of an arm but we don't go round whipping people's arms off at birth just in case

 

That's rubbish mate...

 

Here are 2 of the best songs by one of my favourite misicians on this subject:

I suggest listening to both. One is about Christianity and one about Islam (Mainly, both are really about religion in general). Fairly NSFW in the lyrics (as I'm sure you can guess by the title of the 2nd one).

 

I'm a bit divided in my views on this. In many ways I'm very pro free-market, and believe that private business, especially at the level of small and medium business should be free of regulation and red tape whenever possible, and activeactively encouraged to flourish. Finland for example has a fantastic scheme where the government will give very large grants and startup capital to small business, in exchange for a 10% share in the company. It combines elements of capitalism and socialism, and it works really well.

With regards to larger industries, and in particular those providing public services, I hold rather different views. Take the utilities for example, or the railways. While there is no excuse for such industries to be run in an unwieldy, loss-making fashion, the idea of "competition" between companies which sell you exactly the same product is a bit of an odd one. When buying beer in the supermarket, I will always choose Brewdog or Adnams over Marstons, as I believe their product to be superior. Here competition benefits the consumer. I find it far more difficult to envisage how it can be in the public interest to have a profit making company supplying our gas.

As for transport - a tricky one. A well-run public railway service with a modern business model, which ploughed the profits made from premium routes into the treasury, research and development, and subsidising loss-making routes which provide and essential public service would be a wonderful thing. A public railway service run along the lines of Europe's state airlines in the 1980's - huge, unwieldy, unsustainable, run by bureaucrats, and hugely expensive to use - would be a total disaster. But there is nothing in economic theory to say that state-run businesses cannot be as slick and profitable as modern private companies. It's just that they would be answerable to the general public, rather than their shareholders.

 

Is it? have you browsed either of these texts? Here a few Examples from the Bible.

“I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.” (1 Timothy 2:12)

“This is what the Lord Almighty says... ‘Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’” (1 Samuel 15:3)

“So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight. When her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, ‘Get up; let’s go.’ But there was no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey and set out for home.” (Judges 19:25-28)

“Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.” (Ephesians 5:22)

: “Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the cruel.” (1 Peter 2:18)

 

Yes but its all still in there, by saying the new Testament superseded the old one is in itself basically a act of cherry picking. Devout Christians claim the bible as a moral compass, these verses are within it.